Fixing What Was Wrong

A/N: I’m not JKR- and for once, I’m rather glad of it. I wouldn’t have butchered Hermione’s character or written the drivel that was the romance in HBP.

Just to get some things off my chest—for everyone else who was horrified by what JKR did to Hermione in HBP.

Obviously, something of a parody.

Fixing What Was Wrong

“Shut up!” Harry interrupted fiercely. “Just shut up! If you’re going to keep bickering, go do it somewhere else, because you’re not helping right now. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder why I let you come here in the first place.”

With a last glare at both Ron and Hermione, he shoved himself away from the table and left the small kitchen of the cottage in Godric’s Hollow, slamming the door behind him.

Hermione stared after him with a stricken expression in her eyes…

Joanne K. Rowling sighed and frowned at what she had typed so far that day (something like 15 sentences in the space of an hour and she didn’t even like those sentences). This last book was proving the hardest to write—and she’d thought the 5^th book had been hard!

Something just wasn’t right about the way things were going.

She had stuck to her plot! She had stuck to her original plans and had thought, after Half-Blood Prince that she’d be fine. But now, again, she was in a rut and something just wasn’t seeming right.

What she wrote just didn’t work. It wasn’t flowing. And with the way things were going in the story, she’d be lucky if Harry even managed to find the next Horcrux after 500 pages, let alone the last 3 Horcruxes! Ron and Hermione were either arguing with each other or off alone to snog and make-up from said arguments leaving Harry to muddle through alone—and things were just not working. Hermione was on the verge of tears more often than not and being much less helpful than usual in coming up with ideas and plans for the Horcrux. Ron was—well, Ron was being Ron. Harry had practically taken to sounding like a parent to the other two and that just didn’t sit right either.

No, no, no, no, no. This was all just wrong.

She just didn’t know how or why. This was how she’d planned it! It had all gone well past Bill and Fleur’s wedding until they’d gotten to Godric’s Hollow and now she couldn’t move it any further.

2 years, she’d said, until the next book. 2 years—which gave her approximately 1 year and some months before needing to get it to her editor and revising before submitting the final to the publishers. 2 years—and she hadn’t even gotten past the first week at Godric’s Hollow.

There was something wrong. But what?

She stared at the computer screen again, thought for a moment, wrote a few more sentences, stopped, reread what she’d written, then deleted it with a grimace. No, that wasn’t right.

With a sigh, she gave up and got up from her desk, going over to the sofa in the room spread out with her sheets and sheets of notes, sitting down and beginning to go through them yet again wondering what was going wrong that she’d missed.

~~~

She found herself walking in a little village she had never seen but had pictured in her thoughts until she knew it as well as she knew her own home, as well as she knew Hogwarts. Godric’s Hollow.

She smiled and moved purposefully towards the little cottage at the end of one of the streets off of the High Street, the cottage where it had all started and where it was beginning to end…

She was nearly there when she heard a sound halfway between a gasp and a sob and turned to look for the source of it.

And saw Hermione.

Hermione was sitting curled up under a tree just outside the cottage and watching Harry with something that looked like a wistful expression. Harry was a few yards away, frowning at the grass and idly shredding a few stalks.

She knelt down by Hermione. “What is it, Hermione? What’s wrong?” And knew as she asked it that somehow this would also tell her what was going so wrong with Book 7. Hermione would know. Goodness knew, Hermione seemed to causing most of the problem! Hermione and Harry, to a lesser extent. They both just didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

Hermione glanced at her, showing no surprise. “Oh, hello, Jo.” She stopped, glancing at Harry again, and then looked back up at her author with a twisted smile expressive of some irritation and sarcasm rather than humor. “You want to know what’s wrong?” She raised her voice slightly as she continued, gesturing with a hand rather wildly, “What’s wrong?! This! This is just wrong; me being here with Ron and Harry and snogging Ron while not really helping Harry. This is what’s wrong. I can’t be with Ron; I shouldn’t be with Ron!”

Jo stared. “But- but I’ve always planned it to happen this way. From the beginning. You and Ron were sidekicks, Harry’s friends. You bickered, you liked each other.”

Hermione sighed, suddenly looking more sad than angry. “Yes, Ron and I bicker. We’ve always argued. He’s just such a prat most of the time! I was right when I said he had the emotional range of a teaspoon—or possibly even less than that! And yes, maybe at one point, I did rather fancy him. I did. But, Jo--” she paused and met her creator’s eyes, “Did is the operative word there. Did. I don’t anymore. I- I grew up. I did fancy Ron or thought I might up until our 4^th year or so; I wasn’t really sure who I fancied then. But after everything that happened at the end of 4^th year, in 5^th year, I knew. Ron’s my best friend; I care about him. But I don’t fancy him. Not that way, not the right way. The real way. We don’t really talk about anything; he doesn’t understand me, doesn’t even try to understand me. We just bicker and then we snog—but snogging doesn’t solve anything. It just avoids the real problem, pushes it off until later, when we fight again. Ron and I—we just don’t agree on much. The only thing we agree on really is- is- is Harry.” She looked away, turning her head to look at Harry again.

And Jo understood what the girl wasn’t saying. Goodness knew, she understood Hermione, understood her and wondered why she hadn’t realized it before. She’d just been so set on getting everything to the point of Ron and Hermione about to get together in the 6^th book, as Harry and Ginny were starting and then ending—and forgotten to think about anything else. She’d been so focused, so determined, to finish the 6^th book and move onto this last one that somehow she’d forgotten one of the main things about writing, one of the things that made writing so much fun and so much hard work at times. She’d forgotten that characters change in the writing; they grow up; they evolve—and sometimes plots and events have to change to suit them.

Hermione had grown up. She’d written Hermione as growing up and maturing steadily over the past few years, she realized. In the 3^rd book, when Hermione had chosen to do what she felt was right over what was easy in handing over Harry’s Firebolt to McGonagall. In the 4^th year when she’d stood up to Rita Skeeter and outwitted the woman as well. In the 5^th year—especially in the 5^th year— when she’d argued with Harry even in so angry a mood as he’d been in and told him when she thought he was letting his ‘saving people thing’ get in the way of his common sense; when she’d defied Umbridge and created the DA, when she’d acted impulsively and desperately to save Harry from Umbridge’s Cruciatus, no plan in mind and going on instinct in a way that was completely foreign to her nature but bowing to the necessity of the situation… Hermione had grown up—and she’d grown because of Harry, for Harry’s sake. She cared about Harry that much—even loved him.

She’d grown and matured in a way that Ron had not—and that was why there was something wrong with going on with Book 7 the way she’d planned. (Come to think of it, there was something wrong with Book 6 but that was too late to fix.) Hermione couldn’t be with Ron, wouldn’t fancy Ron as her 13 and 14-year-old self had. Hermione had matured, had passed that stage and moved on to the next.

And that next stage included Harry.

Harry—who needed Hermione so much. Harry—who had sort of, but not quite, realized how much he needed Hermione when he’d thought she might be dead in the Department of Mysteries only to be distracted by Sirius’s death, then the Prophecy, then by being made Quidditch Captain, then by Dumbledore’s lessons, then by Ginny…

Harry—who had grown so much in the last three years to become a hero- and Hermione’s equal.

At some time in the third, fourth and fifth books, Hermione had developed, become more central of a character, become- she realized- the heroine. The only other character at all equal to Harry in importance, in strength of character.

And how natural, inevitable, was it that these two characters who had shared so much, who had grown so much- together- would begin to feel much more than friendship? After years of Hermione thinking and worrying so much about Harry, how inevitable was it that she loved him now?

Jo stared at the girl she had created, the girl who had somehow become a young woman without Jo noticing, the girl who was still watching Harry with a troubled, half-longing, half-apprehensive face. And the look on her face was all Jo needed to see.

“I understand, Hermione,” she said quietly and got up to leave.

She did understand—and she knew what she needed to do to fix what had been wrong with Book 7 so far…

Jo awoke with a start to find herself clutching a sheet of her notes in her hand, realizing she must have dozed off for a moment.

It wasn’t new to dream of her books and her characters and now she knew what had been so wrong.

With confident steps she moved over to her desk, sitting down and beginning again.

Hermione stared after him with a stricken expression in her eyes and then turned to Ron with a sad sigh. “He’s right, you know. We’re not helping; we just seem to fight even more than we used to now. Ron, I- I don’t think we should do this. It just- isn’t right, us being together like this. I- I need to help Harry. We need to help Harry—and we’re just not- right- together. I’m sorry.”

Ron blinked, stared, and then sighed a little. “I know,” he finally said heavily. “I’m sorry too. I- I thought--”

But Hermione cut him off before he could. “It’s ok. I thought so too for a little while. But we’re still best friends, right?”

He looked up and met her eyes, making a show of thinking about her question seriously. “Well, I guess so…” he said slowly, uncertainly, and then grinned. “Yeah, of course, best friends.”

She grinned back and kissed him quickly on the cheek, a simple gesture of friendship this time, one she’d given both him and Harry at different times. “Thanks, Ron.”

He gestured awkwardly with one hand. “You’d better go talk to Harry. Tell him we’ll stop being such prats now.”

Hermione smiled and left to follow Harry out of the house, feeling more herself than she had in months.

She knew he knew when she was near, though he didn’t turn his head or acknowledge her as she sat down beside him.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she said quietly. “I- I don’t know what I’ve been thinking. I’ll help you more now; I promise. You won’t be alone, you know that, right? You’re never alone.”

He finally turned to look at her, his eyes warmer than they’d been in months when he looked at her. “I know,” he said simply.

Their eyes met and held—and she knew she didn’t have to mention that she and Ron were just friends now; Harry would notice and realize it on his own soon enough and wouldn’t say anything. He’d understand, she somehow knew.

And maybe—just maybe—he’d be glad…

“About the next Horcrux- and Regulus Black,” she continued, pushing any thoughts of less-than-platonic feelings out of her mind, “I’ve been thinking…”

Harry listened, nodding occasionally, his mind beginning to race. Maybe—Hermione was right. At any rate, this was a better idea than anything he’d suggested so far… The Hermione he knew so well from their first five years of friendship was back and he felt a surge of gratitude and relief—and hope.

He had Hermione- and Ron- with him; he wasn’t alone… And with their help- with Hermione’s help- he could do this. Finish what Dumbledore had started and keep his unspoken promise to his teacher, his mentor… He could do this…